MELBOURNE, Fla. - The Florida Tech men's basketball team (3-6, 0-3 SSC) struggled to keep pace in its Sunshine State Conference matchup with Eckerd (8-1, 3-1 SSC) and was defeated by the Tritons, 97-83, Saturday afternoon at the Clemente Center.

The Panthers have now been dealt three consecutive losses to kickoff the conference slate. It is the Crimson and Gray's worse start in SSC play since the 2014-15 campaign when the Panthers opened league play 0-5. 

Jordan Majors led FIT with a season-high 31 points on 9-for-16 shooting and five three-point field goals. Sam Daniel recorded 25 points, his eighth 20-plus point game of the season, and a team-best seven rebounds. Valur Valsson registered nine points and five assists and Darius Wright scored six points on two makes from beyond the arc. 

Florida Tech shot 46.7 percent and hit 48.4 percent from long range. Eckerd knocked down 61.2 percent of its attempts from the field and made 42.9 percent beyond the three-point line. The Tritons dominated FIT in several key areas, including rebounding, 40-20, points in the paint, 58-27, and bench points, 36-8. 

The first half was fairly even between the two squads with 11 lead changes and six ties occurring over the first 20 minutes of action. With just over 12 minutes remaining in the first half, Daniel picked off a Triton pass and knocked down the fast-break jumper, despite the contact, and then converted the and-one to give FIT its largest lead of the game at 21-18 with 12:21 left.  

Eckerd countered with a 24-8 run, including four made three-point baskets, to grab a 13-point advantage, 42-29, with 4:03 remaining in the opening half. A trey by Majors cut the margin to seven, 45-38, with 1:14 left but a buzzer-beating three by EC's Keshawn Ingram gave the visiting team a 51-39 lead heading into halftime. 

The Tritons led by double-digits for the majority of the second half and built their advantage to as much as 18 points, 71-53, with 11:39 remaining on the clock. FIT mounted a small comeback, a 13-3 run, over the next 3:10 of game time and decreased its deficit to just eight points, 74-66, on a three-point basket by Valsson. 

EC scored eight unanswered points to push its lead back to 16, 82-66, with 4:53 to go in the contest and then cruised to the final buzzer for its third SSC victory of the season. 

Florida Tech will look to bounce back when it travels to Fort Lauderdale next Saturday, Dec. 9, for a conference showdown with the SSC's only undefeated team, Nova Southeastern (6-0, 3-0 SSC). Tipoff for the matchup between the Panthers and Sharks is set for 4 p.m. ET at Rick Case Arena. Fans can access live coverage of the contest at FloridaTechSports.com.